


Day 13: Armor

by vampirepunks



Series: Blood & Water: Moments from N7 Month [13]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Akuze (Mass Effect), Alternate Universe - Twins, Angst and Tragedy, Blood and Injury, Ficlet, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Trauma, Near Death Experiences, Pre-Canon, Protective Siblings, Psychological Trauma, Shepard Twins (Mass Effect), Sole Survivor (Mass Effect), Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:54:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27604510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vampirepunks/pseuds/vampirepunks
Summary: John Shepard doesn't speak or accept help after being recovered from Akuze. His sister Jane does her best to help.
Series: Blood & Water: Moments from N7 Month [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2000095





	Day 13: Armor

“Shepard… I need your help.” 

Jane looks up from her datapad. She hasn’t been reading it so much as anxiously re-examining a single sentence, unable to process the line of text in any coherent way. Her thoughts have only been with John since he fell into her arms at the landing zone on Akuze. The Tokyo’s doctor runs a hand over her brow, despite the absence of sweat, a nervous habit Jane has noticed over time. 

“What do you need me to do?” she asks, ready to sprint to John if need be. 

“It’s your brother, he needs medical treatment. His leg is broken, among a dozen other problems from being out there injured without food or supplies, and—” 

“So what’s the problem?” Jane asks, posture stiffening involuntarily. 

The doctor sighs and says, “He won’t let me examine him, or even touch him for that matter. He hasn’t said a word this entire time, either. I’m hoping you can reach him, convince him to let me help.” 

Jane nods, slow and deliberative. “I’ll need a minute alone with him.” 

“Take all the time you need, but he direly needs treatment. Preliminary scans show elevated white blood cell count, which indicates infection somewhere in his system, low red cells mean he’s lost blood somehow we haven’t seen yet, then there’s his dangerously low levels on his comprehensive metabolic panel, a high fever… But he wouldn’t let me scan any more than that. His body is under a lot of strain.” 

Jane nods, takes a deep breath, and steps into the medbay, silence echoing as she approaches John alone. She reaches to touch his shoulder. He flinches at the contact with a groan but leans his weight back into her hand when he sees her. 

“I know,” she whispers. “I don’t know what happened down there… Without you telling us, we’re having to set up careful recon and recovery to piece the situation together. Forty-nine marines died and you’re the only one left standing. Thresher maw?” 

Sitting at the edge of his seat on the exam table, John stares blankly at the wall, only the heavy sound of his breath to indicate his mental state. His blue eyes, reflected in a ghost-like shade in the white lights of the medbay, are uncharacteristically vacant. His face is sunken, pale, bruised, and slack as he stares off like a man only half-alive, like part of him was left behind on the planet below. She knows he can speak after he said her name and grasped her so tight he nearly pulled her to the ground with him, he’s just… not talking. 

“John, I’m here. Let me help. I’m going to get this armor off of you, okay?” 

She opens his omni-tool and inputs his code to power down his armor’s motors and interface, his shoulders slumping heavy and eyes drawing closed at the sudden weight of it. He winces as she starts breaking the interlocking pieces away from each other, starting with his hands and moving up his arms and shoulders. He smells acrid as the scent of blood, sweat, and soil fills the air, his face caked with sand and beads of sweat. He heaves a deep breath when she takes his chestplate off. She sets it aside with the shoulder guards and arm pieces, observing the damp cling of his undersuit to his skin. He sits stiff as a marble edifice as she sets him free of the armor’s weight. There’s a deep gash in the left thigh piece, a jagged slice right through a structural weak point where two plates lock together, cutting right through to a gash in his undersuit. A deep wound oozes foul-smelling pus, clotted blood keeping the bleeding at bay, surrounded by black and blue bruising. She sighs in sorrow and shock, caressing his cheek. It’s a miracle he survived. The same leg hangs limp below the knee, the shape slightly off-kilter with the broken bone and visibly dislocated knee. The doc has her work cut out for her, and he may need to be dropped off at a proper hospital. If Jane had to guess how this happened, he was thrown sideways somehow and impacted hard with a sharp piece of reinforced metal--probably a piece of the mangled Grizzly. _Three days like this..._

“John, this infection could kill you. You’ve got to let the doc help you, okay? For me.” 

John meets her eyes, gazing blankly back at her as he nods, eyes watery with pain and grief. 

She takes his boots off, careful to avoid jarring or touching the broken leg. He still whimpers as the last pieces come free. He puts a hand over his mouth, choking on sobs as his body quakes with shivers. Jane sighs and pulls him close, resting her chin on his head, stroking her hands through his red hair, sticky with sweat and sand. 

She wants to call him an idiot, wants to yell at him to _never scare her like this again,_ but she doesn’t have it in her, the situation calling only for comfort and what little consolation she can offer her brother. 

“I’ve got you, Johnny boy. I’m going to call the doctor in, okay? I’ll stay right here.” 

He gives another weak nod against her, coughing through his cries. He still doesn’t speak. 

So Jane stays... She stays for the intense days spent fixing his physical state, and the weeks following as they try to recover the bright, hope-filled spirit John once had. It never returns the same, but he returns to duty with time, eyes a bit dimmer and filled with the resolve of a survivor. It made him a better leader, a stronger man, but a damaged soul. So in the years that follow, Jane does what she’s always done--she protects him, she supports him. 


End file.
